Serbian spy's trial lifts cloak on his CIA alliance
Well, well, well... though it's no surprise to me.
Jovica Stanisic, said to be the point man in Slobodan Milosevic's alleged ethnic cleansing plot, has been outed as a CIA agent by the CIA itself as it plans to help defend him in his trial by the ICTY at The Hague.
For those who don't know, the ICTY had a real problem trying to explain how Milosevic, President of Serbia, commanded the forces of the Republika Srpska, accused of wartime atrocities in 1992-95 Bosnia. So they came up with the theory that he ordered Jovica Stanisic, then head of Serbian intelligence, to round up some ruthless men and create "red beret" forces tasked as "shock troops" of ethnic cleansing. The famous Zeljko Raznjatovic, aka Arkan, who had been in the Yugoslav secret police and served as a bank robber in that capacity, was said to be under Stanisic's control. Stanisic's man on the ground was the Croat Franko Simatovic, also on trial with Stanisic.
Interestingly, Stanisic and Simatovic both hated Milosevic. Captain Dragan, who commanded some of these forces in this alleged conspiracy, also vouched for this and spoke about how he wanted Milosevic to be executed and criticised him harshly when he testified at the Milosevic trial, the trial that ended with Milosevic's death in 2006.
Stanisic was fired from his post as head of Serbian intelligence in November 1998 (the Americans claimed this proved that Milosevic was being "rattled" by Nato pressure over Kosovo that was exerted at the time), along with Yugoslav chief of staff Momcilo Perisic, who in 2001 was caught passing secrets to the Americans. Perisic too by the way is facing trial at The Hague...
06 Mar 2009, 2:08 pm
